Some elements of corporate governance and management are well established through legal requirements and traditional practices. But the concept of governance is expanding beyond its traditional focus on fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to a broader focus on a company's impact on the world and its responsibilities to diverse stakeholders.
At Ford, this is reflected in our development and integration of sustainability structures, processes and management systems into the core business.
This section of the report discusses Ford's overall and Sustainability Governance and its management of key sustainability issues.
Assessing Materiality
A number of topics related to governance and accountability were identified as issues of importance to Ford and our stakeholders in the materiality analysis. Shareholder concerns (i.e., resolutions) and ethical business practices were two issues identified. Concerns expressed exclusively through shareholder resolutions were judged to be of low potential impact on the Company and medium concern to stakeholders. Ethical business practices were judged to be of high potential impact for Ford and medium concern to stakeholders.
Issues related to Ford's sustainability strategy, vision and management – as well as our sustainability reporting – were also identified in the analysis. Ford's sustainability strategy was judged to be of high potential impact on the Company and medium concern to stakeholders. Our sustainability reporting was judged to be of medium impact on the Company and medium concern to stakeholders.
Several additional issues were also identified in the analysis, including political contributions, increasing and inconsistent global environmental and safety regulations, and regulations related to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and fuel economy. Political contributions were judged to be of medium potential impact on the Company and medium concern to stakeholders. Changing environmental and safety regulations in general were judged to be of high potential impact on Ford and low concern to stakeholders. Regulations related to GHG emissions and fuel economy, however, were judged to be of high potential impact on the Company and high concern to stakeholders.
Based on this assessment, we have included discussion of all of these issues in this Web report. In the printed version of this report, which is focused on those issues we considered to be the most material for our Company at this time, we include in the Governance section a summary of our progress in integrating sustainability and strengthening ethical business practice guidance. In the Climate Change section of the printed report, we discuss Ford's response to new and emerging regulations related to GHG emissions and fuel economy.